Kenz could feel tears on her neck as Lou squeezed so hard.
“What did you do?” Lou asked.
She breathed her in. They’d been friends for long enough that now they were family. Lou was closer to Kala, but she’d always been there for Kenzie, too. “What I had to. Tell me how they hurt you.”
“She wasn’t raped.” Huisman’s eyes rolled as if that was so boring a punishment he wouldn’t dream of it. “I told you I need her. She attempted to escape, and my men brought her back. It’s her fault because she fought them. I assure you I didn’t want her arm injured, and I know how easy it is to mentally break a woman. I need her working, not sitting around crying about a little sex.”
“He’s not lying,” Lou whispered. “I did try to escape.”
“And now you will have reasons to focus on your work,” Huisman said. “Take her back.”
Lou was dragged from her arms, tears streaking down her face.
Kenzie kept her own expression blank, though she was caught between anger and terror. “She’ll do what you need her to do.”
Lou’s eyes went wide. “Kala…”
“She will,” Huisman agreed. “And she’ll do it quickly. You will be taken to the lab. We should continue our experiments. I didn’t get to look at your heart after our last session. I’m intrigued to find out how it handled my drugs.”
He nodded, and the other guards took Kenzie by the arms.
She wanted to fight but Lou was right there with guns trained on her. “I’ll be all right.”
Lou’s head shook, and she looked to Huisman. “I told you. I don’t know how Shannon did it.”
“You’re a smart girl. Or at least that’s what everyone tells me. Kala will be having sessions with me. I can only focus on her when I’m not working on my main project,” Huisman explained as though it was all a normal academic process to torture someone for science. “So how often and long our sessions are depends on you, Ms. Ward.”
“You can’t do this to her. She could die after what you already put her through,” Lou pleaded, terror plain in her eyes.
Because Lou thought she was Kala, and that might scare her into doing something she didn’t have to. Kenzie could handle the pain. She feared it, but she didn’t fear anything more than losing her family.
“I’ll be okay. It’s like Mrs. Stapleton’s class in high school. I hated it so much, but I survived,” she said. “It’s as boring as that was, but somehow I came through it.”
Lou stopped for the briefest moment.
Kenzie took that class for Kala while Kala took her chemistry class. They would exchange clothes in the locker rooms after lunch. Lou knew it. Lou’s eyes closed, tears dripping, and when she opened them again Kenzie saw the knowledge there. The knowledge that she had time. That someone was coming. That their team wouldn’t let them down.
And then she was back on. “This isn’t some fucking lecture, Kala. It’s not boring. It’s pain. He wants to kill you.”
“Nah. I think he wants to play with my insides to see if I’m worthy to carry his demon spawn. He might not have offered up rape as part of your torture, but it’s on the menu for me.” She wasn’t stupid. He was a walking pile of misogyny and therefore would reduce any woman he found intriguing to a walking womb. Although she probably wouldn’t be walking. He would ensure she couldn’t fight.
That was why she had her family.
They dragged Lou out and she was left with Huisman and a bunch of guards surrounding her.
“I’m glad we understand each other, Kala Taggart.” Huisman came in close. He ran his fingers down her cheek as though tracing the redmarks his own hand had left. “I’m going to enjoy the next few hours, and you should understand that I recorded all of this and I’m going to send it to your sister. I think she’ll love to hear how you speak of her.”
Oh, he loved to cause pain. If she’d heard her sister talking about her that way… Well, she would know her sister was playing a role. It was there, actually. Now that she was at her bottom, facing something truly terrible, she knew nothing would shake her sister’s love. Or her parents’ or her friends’. She was blessed beyond measure with love. She just wished she’d been the one for Ben, but it was time to move on. “It won’t surprise her.”
“Well, let’s see if I can surprise you. Take her to my lab.”
Kenzie kept her mouth closed as they hauled her away. She figured she would need the energy to scream.
* * * *
Ben looked to Big Tag. “Come on, the sun’s down. Can we move now?”
It had been a vicious form of torture to sit in the forest outside of the castle waiting for the right time to move in. Hours. Four, to be exact. Four hours and twenty-two minutes he’d been sitting in this van while the rest of the team did recon.
